12.4.24 Bernhardsson Chamber Masterclass
12.4.24 Bernhardsson Chamber Masterclass
12.4.24 Bernhardsson Chamber Masterclass
SIBBI BERNHARDSSON
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 12:45pm, Mixon Hall
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Icelandic violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson joined the Oberlin Conservatory faculty in 2017 after performing
for the previous 17 years with the Pacifica Quartet, with which he won a Grammy Award for Best
Chamber Music Performance, Musical America Ensemble of the Year honors, and the Avery Fisher
Career Grant.
As a member of the Pacifica Quartet, Bernhardsson appeared in more than 90 concerts worldwide each
year, including engagements in Wigmore Hall (London), the Vienna Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw
(Amsterdam), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall (New York), and other major
venues. He has performed at the Edinburgh Festival, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, and Reykjavík Arts Festival,
and has collaborated with Menahem Pressler, Yo-Yo Ma, Jörg Widmann, Lynn Harrell, Leon Fleisher,
Emerson String Quartet, Johannes Moser, and members of the Guarneri and Cleveland quartets. His
television appearances include The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, and the MTV Europe Music
Awards with Icelandic artist Björk. He appears on 16 recordings with the Pacifica Quartet and has
recorded the violin music of Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson and the violin sonatas by Franz Schubert.
Bernhardsson serves as director of the Cooper International Violin Competition at Oberlin and as artistic
director of Iceland’s Harpa International Music Academy. He gives regular concerts and masterclasses in
the United States, Europe, and Asia, and has appeared as a soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra,
Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, CityMusic Cleveland, and other ensembles.
Bernhardsson is a 1995 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory. His teachers include Guðný Guðmundsdóttir,
Almita and Roland Vamos, Mathias Tacke, and Shmuel Ashkenasi. He previously served on the faculty of
the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.